


Where I Lay My Head Is Home

by heavvymetalqueen



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-23 00:43:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7459938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavvymetalqueen/pseuds/heavvymetalqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thinking back, they spend most of their first couple of years of Philanthropy driving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where I Lay My Head Is Home

Thinking back, they spend most of their first couple of years of Philanthropy driving. 

It’s usually vans and trucks, vehicles where they can hide Otacon’s equipment and Snake’s weapons under a false floor, or in boxes under clothes and cheap kitchenware. Sometimes older cars, rattly and rumbly, which Snake likes the most even if it’s harder to sleep in them. They never stay in the same place, always moving, always on the run, hunting down clues and tips for Metal Gears and escaping the long reach of the shadow people who want them dead. 

They live in shitty motels where they pay in cash, run down apartments with hallways that always smell of cabbage and piss, and their many cars and vans. They have bedrolls for vans, a small tent for when there’s no other option. A lot of the times they just sleep in the car, passenger seat rolled down while the other drives through the night. Even the place they spend the most time in, the tiny one room apartment in New York where they plot out the Tanker mission, doesn’t house them longer than a month. They slowly shed their possessions down to a minimum, down to what they can throw into a cardboard box and two duffel bags as they rush out another roach-infested hovel. They never have the time to put down even the smallest root.

It’s no surprise that even their relationship during those years is a feverish, hungry and formless _thing_ ; furious kisses after a narrow escape, sleeping bags zipped together against the cold bed of a truck and sleepy bodies entangled, a stolen evening watching Berserk on Otacon’s laptop with tired bodies squeezed together on a worn out couch older than both of them. 

A proper bed is a luxury they have so little of, so used to rushed groping in the backseat of an old Toyota like horny teenagers, or the uncomfortable frotting on musty motel single beds. They can’t take rooms with queen beds. It would make the greasy owner of the day look up from his titty mag. It would leave a trace of their presence in somebody’s memory. So they make do.

It’s not all bad. 

There’s burning summer days with the wind in their hair and breathtaking sunsets setting the sky on fire, and there’s the suffocating warmth of the car’s heater as huge snowy forests part to let them through. Snake is so much better than Otacon at driving in the snow, and seems to genuinely enjoy the cold - not a very snakelike feature, that.

There’s the dozens of two-bucks service station rock CDs that they disseminate throughout the country, forgotten in this or that car but somehow always reappearing to keep them company, the songs on them never too different. Neither of them is any good at singing and that’s probably why it’s so freeing to drive down another country road, belting away that _The Boys Are Back in Town,_ or to _Pour Some Sugar on Me_.

There’s a day driving through Kansas’ endless fields where they talk tersely about love, and things that turn them on, and then Snake gets so horny he leans over to the driver’s seat and roughly sucks Otacon off, head knocking on the steering wheel with every pull. He’s very proud of Otacon for not crashing them into a ditch.

There’s the time they somehow end up squatting in a cabin in the woods of Montana. It’s old and smells of pine sap and old carpets and Snake is the happiest Otacon’s ever seen him. It reminds him of Alaska, he says, even though they both know there’s not much of Alaska he remembers with joy. Or remembers at all. They spend a week there, hiding from the alert raised by an almost botched mission. There’s no wi-fi and Otacon can’t show up on the internet almost at all to stay on the low down, so they go for long walks in the frosty woods, eat game Snake captures in the morning, and have a lot of slow, luxurious sex in the huge hand carved bed, buried under a mountain of heavy blankets. Otacon barely misses the internet that week. 

The apartment in New York is probably one of the worst they’ve had in two years. It’s just one bare room with a cramped kitchenette, a card table and two folding chairs. The bathroom is tiny and windowless, mold everywhere, and the hot water never lasts enough for a full shower, even if they share the small stall. It’s ungodly hot during the humid New York summer, Otacon’s computers overheating constantly and making their only room even hotter. There’s not even a couch, not even a bed frame, just a bare mattress on the floor in corner, an old hard futon. They spend most of their time on it, though, because it’s big enough for both of them, and somewhat softer than the floor. They only tolerate touching each other late at night, when the laptops are whirring quietly on idle routines and the smallest cooler breeze seeps through their only cracked open window. Most of the time, they just lie on their backs in their underwear, feeling sweat roll slowly on their skin, too tired to kiss, too tired to even talk. Despite this, every morning Otacon wakes up and his fingers are entwined with Snake’s, the smallest point of contact they can handle in the suffocating heat. The whole month feels like a fever dream, and maybe that’s what clouds their judgment.

When the tanker sinks, the heat of the apartment is a godsend, as it staves off their hypothermia for long enough for Otacon to sew up the worst of Snake’s cuts and bandage his bleeding head. They leave before dawn breaks, leaving behind everything that isn’t a computer or Snake’s shivering body. 

Otacon loads his sleepy form into the old sedan they arranged for them, throws his laptops and hard drives under the seats, and drives. Snake sleeps most of the time, surfacing from his painkiller haze only sometimes, when Otacon hits a pothole or takes a too sharp turn. 

They drive through three states, using side roads only, before Snake is conscious again. 

Otacon is so twisted with worry he doesn’t realize until he feels his big hand on the back of his head, heavy and warm. 

“You should stop somewhere,” he mutters quietly. 

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not. I’ve seen you nod off already.”

Otacon didn’t notice. He squeezes his burning eyes shut and opens them again. “I’m fine. We’re almost there.”

“Neither of us is gonna make it there if you fall asleep at the wheel. You need to rest.”

“I’ve already put you too much at risk for a lifetime today. I’m not stopping until you’re safe.”

“Hal. Stop the car.” 

Otacon knows him enough to know that tone does not allow for argument. He slows down, driving off the road at the first fork, slowly rolling the car into a small thicket of trees. 

“Good. Now get some sleep.”

“I doubt I’ll be able to sleep.”

“I’ll be here keeping guard. I’ve slept enough.” He cracks open the window and lights a cigarette. The quiet crackle of the tip burning is like a signal, that things are alright despite all, and Otacon’s shoulders slump. 

He cranks the seat back and he’s asleep in seconds, Snake’s free hand loosely in his, making sure he’s not going to sink away again. 

After that, they slow down, taking their time as Snake is “dead” to recover and regroup, in places not so run down, that house them long enough for them to buy plates or towels. After a few more years, they leave the ground behind entirely and reach for the skies. 

Neither of them really _misses_ those burning days on the road, but when they go back to it, once it’s all over, it’s weirdly nostalgic even if nothing is the same. Instead of guns and laptops, Sunny is in the backseat now - chattering excitedly about everything she sees, everything so new to her. Nobody is chasing them. The world is slowly crawling into a state of peace. 

Yet when Snake reaches over to squeeze Otacon’s hand as they drive through Kansas, a cheeky smile on his old mangled face, it almost feels like the past nine years never happened and they are still young, still fighting, still hungry.


End file.
